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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 25, 1989)
jl N0W entering j N EVADA TEST SITE NO TRESPASSING B> ORDER OF THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY * M r • * - i: tfi i i Connie Sheehan/Daily Nebraskar Guards constantly monitor activists from a tower next to the entrance gate to the town of Mercury and the Nevada Test Site. Government officials say safety comes first at Nevada Test Site A thousand toot below the surface of the Vvada desert, a small nuclear device packed under gravel cement and dirt is detonated. With a temperature as hot as the sun's, the device explodes melting solid granite Molten rock tails u, tfH. bottom of a man-made shaft and hardens into a glass-like material As the air cools after the explosion, a cavitv tortus inside the shaft and. it the explosion is large enough, the sandv sou around the shaft sinks into the void forming a crater on the Earth's surface. It could take months tor the Earth to seal the cavity or it could tall in a matter of days. Aboveground, the reaction is sometimes never felt. Rut it the test is a large one, the movement can feel like a "ship rolling on the ocean,'' and can even move an on-site building - intact. f he explosion cannot be heard on the surface. The test itself takes less than a minute, but the entire project requires months of planning and carries a $1() million price tag. More than 8,0(H) people are connected in one wav or another with experiments at the Nevada Test Site the only active nuclear weapons testing site in the United States. Representatives from the Department of Energy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Environmental Protection Agencv, scientific advisers and radiologists oversee each test and are aided bv a last of others; construe turn workers,advisers,scientists military personnel, security and support people. They all work either at the site itself, whuh is m j southwest Nevada, or m surrounding areas stn h as l as j V egas. according to Inn Hover, public information officer tor the Department of Energy. Most ot workers at the site, Hover says, feel the ihk lear tests are safe. we nave <s, iuw people loniiei leu vvun me iesi sue ana ■ I don't know one of them that haseverbeen worried about S safety," he says. £ Boyer and other test site workers are not the onlv ones I who think nuclear weapons testing today is safe If Gerry Allen, radiological officer for the Nebraska C ivil ffi Defense Agency, says workers at the Nevada site are I careful with the weapons tests. "They do a lot of monitoring, checking markers and # daily water and air samplings," he says. ■ Allen also says the Nevada site, which opened in 1951, is probably "the safest place in the world" to do nuclear weapons testing. 1 "The ground water isso far underground and thegran ite is so hard," he says, that the chances of radiation contamination are small. Boyer said a lot of preparation goesintoeach test before and after the explosion to prevent any kind of mishap. Most tests occur 1,200 to 2,400 feet underground. Once the shaft for the device is drilled, it is guarded around the ckxk until it is detonated to prevent tamper ing, Boyer says. | Tests will not occur until weather is favorable and all other technicalities are taken care of, he says. "We do not detonate unless we know' if there was a leakage we would not hurt anyone," he says. If the* wind is blowing toward a populated area on the J test date, the experiment is called off and workers will try again the following day, he says. Radiological monitoring units also are placed at more than 100 designated areasat the site, and an additional 18 fi are kxated off the site Should radioactive material be vented into the air from fl <i test, the monitoring units will track the leakageand its B direction A heluopter, two fixed-wing aircraft - on and ■ off-site- and one Air Force plane also are on hand totrack B venting, B unco the device is detonated, the helicopter witn a video larnera records what happens following the explo sion miles above ground zero. Inside the site's control rix>m, large screens linked to radiological equipment monitor possible venting. Multi colored dots on the screen can track the venting and follow it. It the test is a large one, workers at the test site arc evacuated and people in the area are warned two days in advance. C heckpoints prevent strangers from wandering onto the fest site, Boyer says. Media also a re forewarned to relay the message It) inhabitants of larger cities, he says. Detonating a nuclear device, which is not yet made into a bomb," takes several people. "We make detonating as complex and difficult as pos sible for anybody who dix'sn't know our system, Boyer says. "No one person can flip a button." I he test also can be stopped manually, Boyer says "We have full control," he says. It monitoringunitsgive workersa green light follow mg a test, meaning no radioactive material has been ventec, many people leave the site and go home, and others begin conducting research. „ Boyer says he feels "there is zero to worry about following the tests. But it wasn't always like that. . . Before the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963, vvhic restricted the United Statesand the Soviet Union toumUr ground testing, most experimenting with nuclear vveap ons was done above ground and in the ocean. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, t c